Abstract
This paper provides an examination of the ethics of disease eradication policies. It examines three arguments that have been advanced for thinking that eradication is in some way ethically exceptional as a policy goal. These are (1) global eradication has symbolic importance, (2) disease eradication is a global public good and (3) disease eradication is a form of rescue. It argues that none of these provides a good reason to think that individuals have special duties to facilitate eradication campaigns, or that public health authorities have special permissions to pursue them. But the fact that these arguments fail does not entail that global disease eradication is ethically problematic, or that it should not be undertaken. Global eradication of a disease, if successful, is a way of providing an enormous health benefit that stretches far into the future. There is no need to reach for the idea that there is a special duty to eradicate disease; the same considerations that are in play in ordinary public health policy – of reducing the burden of disease equitably and efficiently – suffice to make global disease eradication a compelling goal where doing so is feasible.
Highlights
Global eradication of disease has fired the imagination since the introduction of vaccination, a possibility that Jefferson brilliantly expressed in his letter to Jenner: ‘Medicine has never before produced any single improvement of such utility
There is no need to reach for the idea that there is a special duty to eradicate disease; the same considerations that are in play in ordinary public health policy – of reducing the burden of disease equitably and efficiently – suffice to make global disease eradication a compelling goal where doing so is feasible
I have suggested that the main arguments for thinking that eradication is an ethically exceptional goal are weak
Summary
Global eradication of disease has fired the imagination since the introduction of vaccination, a possibility that Jefferson brilliantly expressed in his letter to Jenner: ‘Medicine has never before produced any single improvement of such utility. It is not immediately clear that a global vaccine-based eradication campaign could be successfully completed if all healthcare professionals took literally the demand that each intervention they provide should be in the best interest of each patient considered as an individual. I begin by examining three arguments that have been put forward for thinking that eradication is in some way special as a policy goal These are (1) that global eradication has symbolic importance; (2) disease eradication is a global public good, and (3) disease eradication is a form of rescue. I argue that none of these arguments succeeds in showing that eradication is sui generis as a policy goal None of these arguments provides a reason for thinking that public health authorities have special duties to pursue eradication campaigns, or that individuals have special duties to facilitate them. There is no need to reach for the idea that there is a special duty to eradicate disease; the same considerations that are in play in ordinary public health policy – of reducing the burden of disease equitably and efficiently – suffice to make global disease eradication a compelling goal where doing so is feasible
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